Mid-Hudson Civic Center
Monday, November 22, 2021
Oh boy. This was a doozy.
The show has never played Poughkeepsie. And I sincerely hope it doesn't have to ever again.
Though, at the beginning, before I get to the nonsense, the crowd was AMAZING and excited. Lots of applause and laughter and cheering and kids jumping up and down.
Our show has lots of fun elements -- digital projections, Rudolph flying around on wires, a giant Bumble puppet, snow that falls, trees and ice peaks that move around, a scrim, windows that fly in, banners that fly in, and much more!
We cut more things out of the show in Poughkeepsie than ANY other time in the history of this show! No snow, no flying, no projections, no windows, no banners, no Bumble, no scrim, several trees and ice peaks were cut, and more. But more crazy than anything -- all the lights which are normally above and around us to shine pretty lights all around were cut. ALL of the lights. There were NO lights above us. The lights are used for more than just the obvious. These are intelligent lights, meaning they have multiple capabilities. The lights themselves move around and can shine at different places at different times. They also can change colors and even project shapes onto the stage. ALL of them were cut. The only lights we had shining on the stage were from the front (conveniently called front light). They were not intelligent lights, they simply come on and go off. It was utterly bizarre to do the show.
Imagine you are used to performing at Disneyland and then one day you are asked to do the same show, but instead of doing it at Disneyland, you're doing it at a run-down shopping mall. That's what this was like.
We called it "Mrs. Claus' Dance Recital". It was just sad. Sad because we know what the show CAN be (and should be), and we weren't able to deliver what we have rehearsed.
However, like I said, the audience loved it anyway! They clearly didn't know they were missing anything. At the end, as we were starting our bows (also called the curtain call), a group of kids were down in the front jumping up and down and cheering and showing off the Rudolph plush toys they'd bought. It was beautiful.
Right after we all take our bows, we do a sing-along of the song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with the audience. Usually the words are projected up above on our "portal" (which is basically a white border that we hang around the edges of the proscenium [look that word up if it's unfamiliar]) so the audience can follow along. However, we also cut the portal. Since there were no projections anyway (because there was nowhere to put the projector), it didn't matter. Anyhow, because there was also no flying, Rudolph and Santa went to the front of the stage (as pictured below) and we waved and greeted those adorable kids. It was truly great. Do you see the little kid showing Rudolph the Rudolph toy!?! SO CUTE.
That was a great way to end this difficult show. It was an extremely tough day for the crew, because they had all sorts of challenges in getting the show set up, and the local crew was apparently very difficult. Keep in mind, this wasn't a theater, this was a civic center auditorium. The seats were just folding chairs set up in a giant hall. It could have been worse...I guess, but the locals didn't make it easy on the crew. We were all glad to be done.
Here are more shots of the place --
Though this place is not a theater, it is a space where lots of various acts have performed, and that's neat...just not ideal for a big musical like ours. Here are shots from the lobby showing all the various acts throughout the years -- pretty cool.
Oh...and there was an ice rink as part of this big civic center. Hilarious. It was right next to us.
The day after our "fun" performance in Poughkeepsie was Thanksgiving! I didn't get to sleep in, because I needed to go to the laundromat to do laundry, and thankfully our bus driver was going as well, so he drove a few of us that needed to do laundry. The hotel where we were staying REPORTEDLY didn't have a laundry option.
I had a very "fun" time at the laundromat, I can tell you. The washer I chose decided that it would definitely wash the clothes, but it wouldn't drain any of the water afterward. So, I had no choice but to pull all the clothes out, then wring them out onto the floor, and throw them in a basket and take them to the dryer. This was NOT fun. Once I opened the washer, water rushed out like a waterfall onto the floor. NOT fun. You shouldn't be shocked to know that no one else had any trouble with any of their washers.
Thankfully, the dryers worked great and I was able to eventually dry my clothes, though it did take longer than normal.
Once we got back to the hotel, I noticed a nice little sign that pointed to a laundry room (wait, what?), and sure enough, just down the hall there was a perfectly lovely little laundry room with two washers and two dryers. We were told the hotel didn't have a laundry facility -- not by the hotel directly, but that's not important. My laundry is done and I got to take a nap before we had a big get together at 4 that afternoon. Our tour manager and stage manager had gone to Boston Market and got us trays of food, it was great.
Coming up next is our trip to Lowell, MA; a place we did perform before...and it's an interesting place. Nothing compared to Poughkeepsie, though! :)
Thanks for reading.
